Harriet Tubman: Underground Railroad Conductor and Union Army Spy

Born enslaved around 1820 on Maryland's Eastern Shore, Harriet Tubman spent her childhood checking muskrat traps, hauling timber, and laboring in fields and forests — work that, without her knowing it yet, was teaching her the landscape she would later use to escape. As an adolescent she suffered a severe head injury when an overseer's thrown weight struck her instead of its intended target, leaving her with lifelong seizures and sudden sleeping spells — and, by her own account, vivid dreams she came to read as spiritual guidance.

In 1849 she fled alone to Pennsylvania, but freedom without her family felt incomplete, so over the next decade she returned to Maryland roughly thirteen times, guiding about seventy enslaved people north to new lives. She traveled by night, avoided main roads, and carried a pistol — both for protection and, she said, to keep frightened escapees moving forward rather than risk the group by turning back. She earned the nickname "Moses" for this work, and she never lost a single person she guided.

Harriet Tubman, c. 1868–69, from the Emily Howland photograph album (public domain).

During the Civil War she served the Union Army as a nurse, scout, and spy, and in 1863 she guided an armed raid on the Combahee River that freed more than 700 enslaved people — the first U.S. military operation planned and led with direct input from a formerly enslaved woman.

Engraving of Harriet Tubman in her Civil War scout attire, from Sarah Bradford's 1869 biography of Tubman (public domain).

She eventually settled in Auburn, New York, where she worshipped for 22 years at the Thompson Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church, campaigned for women's suffrage alongside Susan B. Anthony, and, in her later years, fulfilled a lifelong goal by opening a home for elderly and poor African Americans on her own property. She spent years fighting the U.S. government for a military pension before finally receiving one, decades later and far below what her male counterparts were paid for comparable service.

Harriet Tubman, 1911, seated at her home in Auburn, New York. Source: New York Public Library (public domain).

Key contributions

• Guided approximately 70 enslaved people to freedom over about ten years of return trips into Maryland.
• Served the Union Army as a nurse, scout, and armed spy during the Civil War.
• Led the 1863 Combahee River raid, which freed more than 700 enslaved people.
• Campaigned for women's suffrage alongside Susan B. Anthony in her later years.
• Founded the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged in Auburn, New York, caring for elderly and impoverished Black residents.

Context

Tubman came of age in a Maryland economy still built on slavery even as free Black communities grew around it, and the informal transportation network known as the Underground Railroad depended on people willing to risk recapture to move others to safety. Her Civil War service also placed her at the center of one of the war's few major operations planned and led with direct input from a formerly enslaved woman.

In their spirit: Every path she carved out led someone else home.

About this set

Tubman's card is one of six in Set 1A — First Flame Daughters, part of the Lineage: Origin Fire postcard collection. First Flame Daughters gathers women whose public courage and leadership lit the way for the movements that followed.

Lineage is launching soon. Visit the Lineage collection page to be among the first to know when postcard packs go live.

Sources: National Park Service — Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park; Library of Congress, Harriet Tubman Collection; New York Public Library; Larson, Kate Clifford. Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero. Ballantine Books, 2004; Empak Publishing Company, A Gift of Heritage: Historic Black Women, Vol. I, 1980 (part of the original research that inspired the Lineage collection).